Button Batteries

Button batteries are found in everything nowadays: remote controllers, car keys, kitchen scales, and LOADS of battery powered children's toys.

Aside from being a significant choking hazard (small things and babies are a bad mix).it's so much worse.

Button batteries react with saliva to create caustic soda. Have you ever had a drain full of gunk and you've poured drain unblocker down it to dissolve through all the organic matter that's built up in there? That's caustic soda.

If a button battery gets stuck in your child's throat, it can literally burn a hole in their food or wind pipe. If the battery gets into the stomach, it can cause tissue damage and internal bleeding.

If it makes it through the stomach and gets lodged in the intestines... You guessed it, burn a hole, cause problems.

Children can die from swallowing button batteries, and some already have, which is why the government has been campaigning for button battery safety awareness since 2021.

Precautions

  • Know what uses button batteries

Not all the small electrics in your home will use button batteries, but a lot of them will. Whenever you bring something into your home, make sure you know whether it takes them, and if it does, what kind (size and chemistry) they are.

I recommend having a spreadsheet, but I'm the kind of person who thinks having your underwear on a spreadsheet when you go on holiday is a good idea, so probably just a list would do the job.

  • Make sure they're secure

While you're discovering what batteries that annoying new toy uses, it's worth checking out how the batteries are fitted inside it.

Is it a flimsy little siding cover that can ping off (bad), or a cover that's screwed on with some miniature screws (better)?

Are the screws secure? How easily could your child get the batteries out, accidentally OR deliberately?

  • Discard batteries promptly

Just because that screaming unicorn (or whatever noise that toy is meant to be making) has finally died doesn't mean the battery is now safe.

A dead button battery can still have enough charge left to hurt a child, so when you remove it to replace with a new one, store it securely until you can recycle it at your earliest opportunity.

Don't delay, discard that dead disc today.

  • Keep replacement batteries safe

You manage to keep the expensive chocolate away from your little one and their unrefined palette, make sure you keep spare button batteries away from them too.

If you're opening multipacks of batteries, be really careful to make sure none fall out onto the floor. I don't know how they do it, but that packaging is always so difficult to open that I end up spilling at least one or two. If you're like me, just make sure you're picking them up again once they're fallen.

Prevention

  • Tell your children

I'm not saying you should start telling your kids horror stories so they don't sleep at night, but you can definitely start warning them about the dangers of button batteries.

Make sure older children know not to let their younger siblings and cousins play with button batteries.

  • Get your kids involved

Sit down with your kids and have them look at their toys to see if they can identify where the batteries are connected, and how easily they can access them. Ask your children for their opinions on which toys are safe and which toys are not, and make sure they know what unsafe toys look like.

Play a game where you ask them to find all the items in the room that they think contain button batteries.

(Don't) Panic

  • Act promptly

If you think your child has swallowed a button battery, take them straight to the nearest A&E department, or call 999 for an ambulance.

Take the battery packaging or the toy it came from with you to help the staff identify the battery.

  • DO NOT PANIC

Don't give your kids anything to eat, or drink, and DO NOT try to make them sick. Just take them straight to the hospital and the doctors and nurses will know what to do.

  • Symptoms to look out for

Symptoms might not be obvious, especially if you didn't see your child actually swallow the thing. They might cough or gag, drool excessively, or point or rub their throat or tummy where the battery is lodged.

The symptoms might come and go, or get seem to get better or worse as time passes, so it's important to pay attention and keep note of when symptoms started and when they change.

Resources

  • Act promptly

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